


Uvirith

by JackRW



Category: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 17:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10768905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackRW/pseuds/JackRW
Summary: The tale of a wizard working his way through the ranks of the Great House Telvanni. Adventure, romance, mystery and tragedy await.





	Uvirith

I sat down at the threshold. The air was cold and stale, permeated with a faint filament of rot. The stone floor was dusty and sent a chill through me despite my thick robes.

Light from outside poured through the open doorway. Its illumination ended abruptly a few meters in, like it had struck a wall. Beyond lay an impenetrable darkness.

I crossed my legs, and put my hands on my knees. There was a knot between my shoulders, and I flexed my shoulder blades in a futile attempt to massage it out.

“I don’t like this place,” said my sole companion. He walked around me, careful to stay within the light’s safety, and vainly peered into the dark.

“I don’t either. But the tome has to be here.”

He grunted, and said nothing.

I took a deep breath. The rot in the air made me nauseous.

I emptied my mind. Let the faintest breeze sway my body like a gust of wind, let the cold deep into my body, let the drifting particles of dust consume my sight.

The rot was pervasive. It tasted of disease.

Bit by bit, my senses expanded outward.

“Get out,” I said to my companion. He knew better than to question, and went back outside.

Outward. Past the dust, past the cold, past the light and into the darkness. Through hallways and tunnels and vast, crumbling chambers. Down narrow stairwells, deeper and deeper. Filling out the decrepit temple like ink spreading across paper.  

“I found it!”

My companion dashed inside.

“It’s in a crate two levels down,” I said.

“You can get us there?” He asked.

“Of course.”

I stood, too quickly, and nearly fell over with dizziness. My companion caught me, and I leaned on him until my head steadied.

He said nothing, but his look was concerned.

“This place. There’s a… a rot in the air. Can you smell it?”

“No,” he said. I shook my head, regretted it, and took another moment to let the world right itself.

I stepped away from him. Carefully.

“You’ll want a torch,” I said.

He went back outside, and returned briefly with two torches in hand. He gestured them towards me.

I waved my hand over them, and they ignited. Within seconds, their flames were full. I took one, and he kept the other.

“That way,” I said. We went in the direction I indicated.

The torches tried valiantly to illumine our way, but the darkness swallowed their flickering light. A small circle of light was all that it allowed, enough to avoid tripping over obstacles but no more.

I guided us through the ruin, following the map I’d created in my mind. My companion simply trusted that I knew where I was taking him. He knew me well enough by then to trust that easily.

“This darkness,” he started to say as we entered a chamber. “It isn’t natural.”

I pointed into the black, and he followed.

“I agree,” I said. A doorjamb materialized before us, as suddenly as if it had been conjured by a sorcerer. “Through here.”

“We’re alone here?” He asked some time later.

“I sensed nothing.”

“Right.”

“Lesser Daedra do not know how to hide from me. Greater Daedra cannot.”

“Right.”

“You don’t seem convinced.”

“I’ll keep my sword ready.”

I grinned.

“Not altogether unwise, my friend.”

Without incident, we made it to the ruin’s first sublevel. Through twisting hallways and impossible rooms, we came upon what we were looking for.

The crate was not large or ornate. It was tucked away in a corner, partially hidden by a number of large metal barrels, and caked with ancient dust.

Before grabbing it, my companion looked to me. I shook my head.

“No such luck. It’s enchanted,” I said. He nodded, and stepped aside so I could get at it. I knelt down in front of the chest, placing my hands over it without touching it.

To the trained eye, the chest glimmered with an iridescent sheen that betrayed its traps and wards. Unlike my companion, I could see it, and I could defeat it.

I stripped away layer after layer, my fingers twitching almost imperceptibly, my lips murmuring without sound. Layer after layer, until the last.

“Uh-oh,” I said. My companion’s sword immediately flew from its sheath, his eyes darting about for signs of imminent danger. I waved him down, and sat back on my haunches.

“What is it?” He asked. I rubbed my chin with my thumb, and contemplated.

“I can’t get past the last ward,” I said. Surprise dashed across his face.

“Why not?”

“The runes are carved directly onto the chest. The incantation is relatively simple, but it would take me days to disenchant it. Oh, look at that. There are runes on the lock as well. Etched into the metal.”

“So what do we do about it?”

“Odd. It’s rare for someone to go through the trouble,” I said, more to myself than him.

“If it’s so hard to break, why don’t more people do it?”

“Most people don’t know how. This kind of enchanting is highly specialized. Not very difficult if you know what you’re doing, though.”

“ _If_ you know what you’re doing.”

“Precisely. Classical enchanting is built around the use of soul gems, the storage and transfer and manipulation of energies. This kind of runic enchantment isn’t. It is more akin to a prayer than a spell, in fact; the power is derived from the ritual. Its applications are therefore rather more limited-”

“How do we break it,” he interrupted. I shrugged.

“We spring the trap.”

He grunted. “Can you tell what it’ll do?”

“Oh, yes. Another property of runic enchantment that made it less desirable than-”

“What will it do?”

I took a deep breath, forced down the contents of my stomach, and slowly stood up. I had to brace myself against the wall, and my companion watched me with concern. The rot was more powerful here, deeper inside the ruin. I could feel its source, further down, and I knew that going there would likely kill me.

“The enchantment is twofold. The first will blind the opener. It isn’t very powerful, and I can dispel the effect without much trouble. The second looks like it will summon a guardian spirit.”

“A guardian spirit? Is that more like a skeleton, or more like a wraith?”

“More like an atronach. Could be frost, if I’m interpreting it correctly. Or maybe flame? Does that look like _zyr_ or _iya_ to you? Yes, definitely a Frost Atronach.”

“Okay. I should open it, then,” he said, gesturing to his eyes; the left was scored by a deep scar and completely inoperable.

“Fine. I think I brought a dispel potion, if you want it.”

“You _can_ remove the blindness after, can’t you?”

I grinned. “Whenever you’re ready.”

He gave me a scathing look, and knelt down to the chest.

“Tell me when,” he said. I centered myself, and extended my hands to a casting position.

“Now.”

He threw open the chest, and the runes broke with a shrieking wail. A misty green light arced towards my companion, and I could see the faint shimmer of magic wrap around his eyes.

I stood ready, my hands placed palm outwards, right slightly behind left. Waiting. The wail echoed through the silent ruin.

Nothing. Nothing. Then a flicker.

In the center of room, just at the edge of our torches’ light, the air warped. A vortex of purple light tore the space, and just as a figure started to emerge, I cast the spell.

I parted my hands, and smashed them back into place. Fire poured from my palms in a solid torrent of white and blue. I was immune to the magical heat, but my companion cried out in pain from mere proximity to that wave of pure flame.

It crashed into the vortex and the figure that stepped out of it. For almost three seconds, it was bathed in fire.

My spell ended. I slumped forward with the momentum of my expenditure, and struggled to control my breathing. Still, the rot nearly made me vomit, and I clung to the wall to keep from falling. I was sweating in the cold, and the flame’s afterimage left me almost as blind as my companion.

And from the blackness stepped a Flame Atronach, humming with excess energy.

“It was _zyr_ ,” I said. “I-I can’t…”

The Atronach took another step, tentative. It was watching me, moving its oddly feminine head like a bird’s. It was fire given shape, and I hadn’t even touched it.

I held up my hands, trying to cast a protective spell, but they shook and the spell wouldn’t come together. The Atronach raised its hand, and tongues of fire coalesced into a ball in its palm.

Without a noise, my companion brought his longsword down across the Atronach’s wrist. The ebony metal cut through the magical flame, and the creature recoiled with a scream of pain.

With its other hand, it swiped at him, but he ducked beneath the blow. With a single upward thrust, he drove his sword through its stomach and into its head. It was a perfect strike, and the Atronach imploded around the blade, disintegrating to salt.

I vomited. My companion was suddenly at my side, supporting me as I wiped at my mouth.

“The blindness… It dissipated naturally…?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But it can wait until we’re out of here.”

I looked up at him, and saw the green shimmer around his eyes. He was totally blind. I coughed out a laugh.

“I knew…. I knew I kept you around for a reason,” I managed to say. He grunted.

Wobbling, I pushed away from him. I slouched over to the chest, and knelt down to it.

I started grabbing everything that was there. Yellow scrolls, undoubtedly spoiled potions, an enchanted dagger, and, at the bottom, the book.

“It’s there?” My companion asked.

“It’s here,” I said. “Master Demnevanni will be very pleased.”

I hefted my laden pack, and struggled to my feet. I vomited again, directly into the now empty chest.

“Can you lead us back out?” He asked.

“I can. Just give me a minute.”

Every breath brought more of the rot, more intense and more fetid. My eyes burned with it, and it clung to my skin like oil.

“Go,” I said. “We… go.”

He offered his shoulder, in the wrong direction, but I staggered over to lean on it.

Together, we managed to trace our steps back out of the ruin unmolested.

Gasping, I collapsed through the doorway of the ruin. My companion grabbed under my arms and dragged me the rest of the way to our camp.

Every breath cleared my head a little more, and an hour later I was able to sit up and remove my companion’s blindness.

He shook his head, blinking his one good eye rapidly.

“What was in that place?” He asked.

“I should have known. I should have anticipated it.”

“What _was_ it?”

I arced an eyebrow, and gestured towards the statue that still stood grandly above the ruin’s entrance; a mighty dragon, with a slender neck that raised its pointed head to face the sky.

“Pestilence, of course.”


End file.
